This past Saturday, the hubs and I took the three kids down to a copper mining town where they got to go 1500 feet into the Earth and learn all about mining, explored the old town, and then headed on to Tombstone - where they got to see and learn all sorts of interesting things.

Spent the night in Tombstone and then headed back up home - but on the way, we stopped at the San Xavier Mission.

When I was 16, my grandparents took me out to Arizona on vacation and we stopped at this mission - so since it was right on the way (well, a few miles out of the way - but my husband was NOT going to argue with me about this!) we stopped so I could share the experience with the kids. I cried a bit (both of my grandparents are long gone) but it was awesome to share the experience of the mission AND the stories of my grandparents at the same time....

This trip was saved for - every Spring Break we take the kids on some type of historic/learning vacation. Last year was the Grand Canyon - its so much fun to see them take the so called knowledge from their school text books and correlate it with what is standing right in front of them....

But, although the trip was saved for - as with all trips, we might have gone a little over in the category of eating. We didn't realize HOW expensive it would be - so time to go back to the budget and rework it to cover the difference!

Before I met the man of my dreams (hubby) I was married to the nightmare of my life.

Ok, that is probably not overly fair to say - so instead I will say that I was very young (19) and thought I had found the man of my dreams (ex-husband). We had two children together, and they are the most amazing things that ever came out of that relationship.

My ex-husband is an alcoholic. One of the reasons for the divorce. We have been divorced for 10 years, and in those 10 years, he has basically ignored the fact that he had any financial or emotional responsibility to his children.

During this time, he had no bank account and got paid under the table. The only support we received was the 2 years he filed taxes and I received his tax return.

Around last August, he finally went to an in-patient treatment program and has gotten sober. He also filed for VA disability benefits and was awarded 20% disability. In order to receive his disability, however, he had to open a bank account.

So, after 2 years of not even speaking to this man, I get a message that he needs to speak to me. The conversation basically informed me that he had opened a savings account, went to rent a red box movie and the machine wouldn't take his debit card, so he called to see why. His savings account has been frozen and reads that he has an available negative balance of $76,000.

He would like for me to call the state and have him absolved of his debt.

Is he crazy? Or am I crazy for even contemplating it for a second?

I realize that it will take until the end of time for me to receive that money from him. However, he has a responsibility to his children and his past poor behavior shouldn't be absolved. At the same time, this is a huge mountain for him to stare into and I fear that it could cause a setback to the progress he has made to better himself and get a grip onto his own life.

I have decided that I am not absolving anything. Instead, I wrote my ex mother in law and laid it out for her - what the situation was, so that she could possibly help him either financially or by getting him some financial education. I felt very uncomfortable writing her - although we have maintained a relationship all these years. But we never talked about her son or that he wasn't paying child support - so to bring it up now was very uncomfortable.

Perhaps I made the wrong decision - but it has been made and done, so not much I can do about it now.

Just another example of how poor financial choices from years past can come back to possibly destroy your future. Its best to stare those debts in the face and do what needs to be now rather than wait a decade to face the music.